Parentheses
by Dahne
Summary: Two exiles find common ground. Nether Scroll spoilers. EdwinViconia. Shoujo ai. Yep.


"I despise this horrible body!" Even his voice was wrong. Her. Gods, the things she would do to that lich if it hadn't had the luck to already be dead.

"We know, Edwin," Mazzy sighed, not looking up from the whetstone she ran across her shortsword's edge.

"Oh. Well, good." Somewhat deflated, Edwin tucked her arms into her sleeves and tried to salvage the remnants of her budding tirade. Good tirades were getting harder and harder to come by. "I still don't see why none of you cretins are trying harder to find a way to fix it."

"Basic lesson in human nature, Edwin," Serdalth remarked lazily. He was sprawled on the other side of the campfire, eyes half-closed and head resting on his trademark hide berserker's shield. "People aren't all that motivated to do you favors if you keep calling them 'cretins'."

Honestly, if it weren't for the singularly interesting prospects offered by being in the company of an heir to the late god of murder, Edwin would have fireballed the lot of them weeks ago.

"Besides," he continued, "you're a lot more entertaining this way."

Months ago.

Muttering a series of vividly unflattering descriptions under her breath, Edwin pulled uncomfortably at her robes. Nothing was where it should be. Things insisted on _curving _ where they weren't supposed to.

"Fool mage," Viconia murmured softly beside her. Edwin managed not to jump. The drow could be so quiet lately that she would forget she was there. "It would be the work of but a moment to adjust the seams to allow for your new...voluptuousness."

"No!" she snarled, more harshly than she meant to.

Showing no outward reaction, Viconia shrugged. "Please yourself."

Edwin shifted. It wouldn't do to alienate the only nearby healer. It could damage her health. That was all. She certainly didn't feel bad for snapping at what was only a suggestion.

"I can't," she muttered to her lap. "It would be admitting defeat. (Gods help me, what if I were to become comfortable like this?)"

"Then you would be less miserable." Viconia sighed, almost a little sadly. "Really, I cannot see why you insist on railing so pathetically against your circumstances. What have you against women?"

"Nothing at all, but I don't wish to _be _ one!"

She looked at her, and asked innocently, "Why not?"

"Because...! Because...Hmm."

Through some trick of the firelight and the shadows cast by her cowl, Viconia almost seemed to be smiling. "I thought as much."

* * *

Edwin hated everything about orcs. No, that wasn't true. She rather liked the satisfying sizzling noise they made when intimately and unexpectedly acquainted with a magic missile or five. But she hated the archers, their lumpy short bows, their crude arrows. Especially the one that was lodged in the side of her gut at the moment. 

Good thing the archer it had come from had been distracted at the last minute by, she recalled not without a measure of personal pride, an arrow of her own, this one crafted from magical energies and dripping quite delightfully with enough acid to eat through a dungeon wall, striking it in a hard-to-ignore manner right between the eyes. The orc's shot had been understandably demoted to second priority, leaving Edwin with only a trivial wound, small enough that, once she had yanked out the arrowhead and thanked the gods that orcs lacked the creativity to barb them, it was effectively hidden by the color and elaborate cut of her robes. She had to fight the urge to limp or wince often as she stumbled along the rough-paved corridor, especially whenever the disrepair of the ruins demanded that she scramble over some rocky outcropping, but in this darkness no one would be able to see it.

"Edwin."

No one who wasn't a drow.

"What is it?" she snapped, only slightly too late. It had startled her, that cool, smooth voice nearly at her shoulder. The woman could sneak about like a shadow wraith.

"You're injured." Her tone brooked no argument, rivered no complaint, and oceaned no denial.

"It's just a flesh wound," Edwin said, twitching her robes self-consciously in a futile attempt to hide the spreading stain.

"What, exactly," Viconia inquired, "is that even supposed to mean?"

"I...(don't know, really.) It means that I'm fine! (I'm not some delicate damsel!)"

"Oh, just hold still." Viconia chanted under her breath.

"I told you, I—eep." No matter how many times she underwent it, the cool blue light and swift, electric chill of a healing spell always caught Edwin off guard. In contrast, Viconia's hands laying on her shoulders felt unexpectedly warm.

When the light faded, Viconia turned to follow their companions, who had left them a ways behind. Edwin scurried to fall into step beside her, probing reflexively at her stomach. Beneath a thin crust of blood, the skin was smooth and unbroken.

"How do you do that?" she asked, curiosity overcoming her natural refusal to admit that she was not, in fact, an authority on everything. "It's not at all like my magic."

"At its heart, it is," the cleric contradicted without venom. "The fundamental difference is that I draw the power from Shar, while you pray only to yourself."

"Oh. (That makes sense.)" Edwin had never known much about priests; relying on the whim of some transcendental entity who may or may not be paying attention at the moment was not an idea that brought her great comfort. "This Shar must be a recluse; I've never so much as heard her name from anyone besides yourself."

"She comes to those who need her." Viconia's gaze dropped, studying something Edwin couldn't see. "She is the goddess of darkness, and loss."

"And you lost your home," Edwin said softly. She was forcibly reminded of— no, no, it wouldn't do her any good to think about that.

"Yes." After a moment, Viconia seemed to shake herself from a trance. Her voice regained some of its customary edge. "You would do better than to cast doubt on her, considering that it is she who has patched together your hide."

Edwin snorted. "Gods are no concern of mine. The only difference with yours is that she is made useful by virtue of your skill."

A short distance in front of them, the bobbing torchlights had come to a halt, and Serdalth's voice could be heard cajoling them to hurry the hells up. Edwin quickened her pace, looking back just long enough to catch a glimpse of a smirk beneath the golden hood.

"You're welcome," Viconia said.

* * *

"Hold up, wayfarers. I've a few queries for this lowly group of middling pilgrims." 

_ Oh no. Oh _no.

Under his breath, Serdealth observed, "Between the red robes and the charming attitude, I'd say our new friend here is definitely a Thayvian." He rose his voice to a more audible level. "Yes? What can these humble adventurers do for you, good man? And of what nature is the reward? The answer I'm searching for is along the lines of 'hefty.'"

"We are interested in the whereabouts of Edwin, a long-winded bag of gas," the mage announced, sweeping about dramatically to take in the entire group. Serdalth, slightly to the front, breaking slowly and inexorably into what promised to be a hideously delighted grin. Mazzy, small, serious face gone suddenly very still. Viconia, her lovely, damning blue skin hidden beneath her cloak. Haer'Dalis, whistling unconcernedly to himself. Jan, obviously adding this in gruesome detail to his storehouse of dramatic monologues. And Edwin. She stood frozen, but his eyes lingered on her for only a moment, and that devoted to a region she was getting very tired of telling people to stop staring at. "Homeland magics indicate this area to be a likely place for the vulture to roost."

"Oh?" Serdalth said noncommitally. Edwin's mind raced in a thousand horrendous directions. She distracted herself by mentally reciting a litany of ways to wipe that smirk off his face, some highly improbable and most magnificently gruesome. "And just what has this mage done to _disengender_ you?"

A _long_ litany.

The Thayvian appeared not to notice anything amiss. "Edwin is a self-serving nerveless worm," he continued obliviously. "He's gone rogue. He tithes nothing and has vilified the masters of the order and sullied their good names. As it happens, his prowess as a spellcaster consists of parlor tricks and balls under coconut shells. Did I mention the fantastic reward as well?"

"Do go on," Serdalth encouraged, enjoying himself immensely.

"There is a king's ransom for the kind soul who would be so obliging as to turn the impotent imposter over to the proper judicial authority."

"Is that so." Tapping his head with one finger, Serdalth made an ostentatious parody of deep thought that would have been ludicrous even had it not been performed by a man with the sort of build that suggested he could be flung into a brick wall with no injury other than that later sustained by the flinger. "Edwin...Edwin...hmm. I could swear I've heard the name before. But are you certain he's not irre-_dame_-able? Maybe you just need to _broad_en your horizons."

Mazzy made a choking noise, and the mage looked at Serdalth askance, but said only, "No. There is no question of it. The cretin must be found, if we have to track him like a dog."

"Really? The problem sounds like quite a bi— ouch!"

It was endlessly fascinating, what could be done with proper study. A common lightning spell, for example, could with a bit of cleverness be dampened and reshaped into something nearly undetectable to mage senses but still strong enough to deliver one hell of a shock.

Serdalth glared at Edwin, but she merely donned a smile that could put a diabetic into an immediate and severe coma. It must have reminded him of the potentially dire consequences of his amusements, for he spread his hands and said,

"Sorry, friend. I can't say I've seen this Edwin fellow." That much was true. If he said it, he'd get a fireball shoved down his throat. "We'll be sure to let you know if he pops out, er, up." Come to think of it, that idea sounded pretty good regardless.

Thankfully, the Thayvian was remarkably short on patience and had clearly had enough of the oddly-behaved group.

"Very well then," he said curtly. "Be sure you do." With an elaborate gesture Edwin knew for a fact was not at all necessary, the twit summoned up a dimension door and stepped though, vanishing. None too soon at that.

As soon as he was gone, Edwin shouldered her staff and set out forward. They had things to do, monsters to—

She turned. Everyone was looking at her, with the exception of Mazzy, who had her back to the group.

"What?" she demanded.

"Nothing," Serdalth, Jan, and Haer'Dalis chorused. Each expression could have been framed and hung on a wall beside a bronze plaque labeled 'Innocence.'

"Milady, are you quite all right?" she inquired of Mazzy coldly. The halfling was wracked with violent convulsions.

"Fine," she gasped, face still averted. "Absolutely fine."

* * *

"What aren't you telling us, red wizard?" 

She had waited until the others had fallen asleep around the embers of the campfire to ask, undoubtably assuming that Edwin would be more likely to answer if it were only the two of them. Curse her for being right.

"What kind of question is that?" Edwin retorted. "Dozens of things. What sort of geckos live in this area. The components needed for a proper Dire Charm. The fourteen incantations contained in the writings of Kaerdwen the Unfortunate, and the means of rendering them to the unwelcome eye as a series of harmless, if not especially good, scone recipes."

The shadowed gaze never wavered. "You know what I mean."

A sigh. "True."

Edwin pulled purposelessly at her sleeves. Patiently, Viconia waited.

"It was all that witch Dynaheir's fault," she said finally. "I was sent to kill her, and I didn't." Why hadn't she? It had all seemed to make sense at the time. The sunlight glinting unbearably off of ranks of halberds. The stench of gnoll's blood. Minsc, and his imbecilic joy at the reunion. "Now she is forever beyond my grasp. We...The red wizards are not tolerant of failure."

It wasn't much. No one had ever gotten more.

Viconia seemed to think about it for a long time. Edwin had almost decided she had fallen asleep and risen to seek her own bed when, eyes never lifting from the gracefully folded blue fingers, she began to speak.

She spoke of the Underdark she had known. She spoke of the families, the eternal silent wars that all could see but none would acknowledge. She spoke of the night, the assassin army that had decimated DeVir, a stepping stone for Do'Urden as they clawed their way higher, with a twist of bitter satisfaction at the later betrayal by what became the house's most famed member. ("Insufferable braggart, too good to use vowels in his name like the rest of us," Edwin scoffed.) She spoke of Shar, and loss.

There was silence when she finished. The warm darkness, accented with the distant sounds of creatures and growing things, felt something like safety.

"Fools," Edwin said finally. "You're well rid of them. (What sort of blind idiot would part company with you so easily?)"

She stared upwards. The stars shone with an icy brightness that bordered on absurdity.

"Thay..." she murmured, half to herself. "I suppose I haven't lost so much, in comparison."

"Your proper body," Viconia reminded.

"What? Oh. Oh, yes! Right."

* * *

"Vita...Mortis..." 

Edwin traced a figure in the air over her spellbook, the constant staccato of cricket calls and the occasional wolf howl or gibberling gibber that textured the night forming a counterpoint to her muttered chants.

"Incactos...Potentis..."

The book itself had traveled far. It had served Edwin since she was a young boy, sharp-eyed and eager with the sort of reversed idealism so common in Thayvian youth - to be the greatest of the petty, to sink one's hands deep into muck up to the elbows in order to rise immeasurably above. It had left its homeland and been dragged through swamps, ruins, mountains, and what felt like half of the caves and mines that honeycombed the rock below to such a degree that it was a wonder no drow ever stopped by to complain about the noise.

"You've grown more graceful."

Speaking of drow.

It was a good thing this was only a practice cast. Otherwise, the startled hook Edwin's hand cut through her forms would have given the flame arrow it was intended to summon seven eyes and a foul disposition.

"Viconia," she said, after recovering her composure somewhat. "What wakes you, so late this night?"

The drow 's head tilted back, turning her face toward the sky. For once she was free of her cloak, the darkness shrouding protectively in its stead. "The stars. They are still a...novelty to me. I suppose I shall grow tired of them soon enough."

"That's not always the case," Edwin said. "They haven't grown old to me yet. Some things," she added, half to herself, "never lose their fascination."

Viconia nodded silently. The she asked, as if reaching some inner decision, "Why do you hate being a woman so?"

Later, Edwin wondered fleetingly if some sort of spell had been cast against her by an unseen foe, some arcane captivation of her mind. She was glad when she decided that, if anything, it was only the moonlight, the luminous eyes, the dusky perfume, for it meant that there was no one whom she would be require to hunt, track down, and thank profusely.

"I don't know who I am," she said, reeling on the unfamiliar narcotic of honesty. "It's as if whole realms of my mind that have never acknowledged the other's existence are suddenly intimate companions. Who am I? Gods, where do I stand?" Her eyes were white-rimmed, flooded with naked panic. She killed it with the aid of her old ally rage.

"This body," she spat vehemently, "is good for nothing but humiliation and misery!"

Viconia drew closer. Lithe. Yes, lithe was a good word for her. Closer still. She knelt down, and with the very tips of her fingers drew Edwin toward her until their faces nearly touched.

It was barely more than a whisper, but Edwin could feel it against her skin, faintly musked and hinted with flowers that had never been touched by sunlight. "I could show you, if you like,"Viconia breathed, "how very wrong you are."

* * *

Beregost was a pleasant city these days, Taerom Fuiruim thought. Oh, it hadn't been without its share of hard times; first there had been that whole mess with the Iron Throne that almost touched off a war across the entire Sword Coast, then that horde of Bhaalspawn running rampant. Far south though the center of that had been, there had been disturbances up clear to Baldur's Gate. It was long over now, though. Reports were that the few remaining Bhaalspawn had given up their power, and things had been remarkably peaceful ever since. He had been forging more plowshares and fewer battleaxes than he could remember doing for years. 

It was funny, though. Some of the descriptions he'd heard of those last godchildren reminded him of a group that had passed through town once in the old days, with the innocent-eyed girl who kept surreptitiously reaching for his pocket and the big fellow all in leather and a grin that suggested that not only did he know a fantastic joke, it was on you. They'd sold him a few things, including an interesting girdle that, despite the curse it carried, was worth a good bit as a curiosity, and mentioned heading on south to Nashkell. Coincidence, no doubt.

Coincidences seemed to sneak up on him sometimes. Today, for example. He was pruning his hedges, carefully edging around the ones that had fallen victim to a wild mage's uncontrolled surge once and started trying to prune back, when he glimpsed a hint of red out of the corner of his eye. At first he had half-thought it was that wizard fellow who had come by a few months ago and expressed interest in that very same girdle. Taerom, being a basically honest person, had warned him about the curse, but he had merely waved off his concern and bought it anyway, citing the rareness of such enchantments and a desire to study exactly how the effect was brought about. Then Taerom had understood his interest, suspecting that he desired to find a way to duplicate the curse in the form of a spell in order to give an enemy a nasty surprise. Well, there were far nastier in the world,so his conscience didn't afflict him. The gold helped a bit, too. The stranger had seemed quite eager to attain the item, and had rushed off soon afterwards.

But no. As the shape, accompanied by another, drew closer, it was obvious that he was mistaken. It must have just been the color, for this woman wore robes of a similarly audacious crimson, but that was were the similarities ended. She seemed to be engrossed in conversation with the person beside her, who appeared to his sun-dazzled eyes exceedingly dark—

"Drow!" a man shouted in alarm. "Guards! A dark elf!"

From every corner of the square they came running. Curiosity was plain on the children's faces - drow were supposed to be, like the great Gnollslayer of far northeastern Rasheman and his mighty rodent familiar, only stories - fear on the adults'.Within moments the street seethed with townsfolk, angry at this intrusion into their only recently calmed lives. In the center stood the two strangers, a few feet of space separating them from what was rapidly knitting into a mob.

There was silence like a dragon inhaling.

The woman in red drew herself up.

"Your powers of deduction are extraordinary," she proclaimed imperiously. "This woman is indeed a drow."

She appeared to murmur something under her breath. At her sides, her hands burst into multicolored flame. She spread them amiably in front of her.

"Is that," she said mildly, "going to be a problem?"

The farmer with the ill fortune to be in the front, likely because he happened to be carrying a pitchfork, shifted uneasily.

"Er, no," he said. "We're all fine." He raised his voice and glared about pointedly. "Aren't we?"

"Oh, yes!"

"Yes yes. Just fine."

"No problems here."

Muttering self-consciously and with an occasional "Mama, why is the pretty lady blue? Is she cold?", the crowd dispersed and went about its business.

After a few minutes, no one but Taerom was paying them any attention at all. It was quite interesting, how well a population could adjust to the presence of something foreign, when the alternative was adjusting to life as a small pile of ashes. His mother had always told him that it was impolite to stare, so he snuck glances between fussing with his hedges, which nearly lost him a limb but preserved his manners. He couldn't help but watch a little longer. The contrast between the two pulled at the eye.

The woman in red gave a sharp, satisfied nod, took the hand of the woman beside her, and said,

"Good."

* * *

Notes: 

-My first non-Metal Gear fic. I think this marks me as officially hopeless.

-Baldur's Gate is interesting, because, if you're doing anything at all involved in the timeline of the games themselves, there _has_ to be an original character. I really dislike original characters as a rule, especially as the cliches are numerous and very easy to fall into, so I tried to avoid them by shaping Serdalth to exactly one specification: to be someone who would annoy the hell out of Edwin.

-Thanks to the novelisations at for the bits of dialogue lifted straight out of the game. I still ended up reinstalling the damn thing and playing it again, but they still helped a lot.


End file.
